"We live in a profoundly degenerate world" (HST)

"Are you visiting?" an old lady asked. "Look at all that dog shit," she said. "It never used to be like this. When Beame was mayor the streets were clean. It was when Koch came that all this happened."

I told her I live here. "You can't imagine," she continued, "what it was like back then. Now I watch my step everywhere I go, you can't avoid it, there's shit everywhere."

I had been watching her. She came out of the darkness between the streetlights doing a little dance before she noticed me. Then she stopped and told me about the crap on the ground. I retraced her steps after she left; the sidewalk was clean.

The news was bad today and I think the world is a little less decent. But late tonight in New York, when she thought no one was watching, an old woman danced in the street as if she were much younger.